Review Replies:

I'll make this section where I reply to reviews that come in. And I'll do it on an as needed basis. So if you've got a question or comment, I'll reply to it here.

As a reiteration, I do accept suggestions for the story (within reason, so no AU stuff). I've got basically the main story planned out (or at least outlined in accordance with the canon storyline), but ideas can be used to flesh out details, and provide some continuity or funny asides. I mean, they do DO things when they're not out saving the world. So if you want to throw an idea my way, I'll take a look at it and see if it fits within the parameters of the storyline. If it does, I might just put it in. With much elaboration, of course. Or twisting. I like taking ideas and twisting them into something new.

As for getting Ciara an exceed partner of her own… (I'm sure that there's more than one person thinking that) I wasn't planning on it, simply because she doesn't need one for flying, and she kind of shares Happy with Natsu. But we'll see what happens when the Edolas arc comes, because there's a slight possibility that I could change my mind. Who knows? But I am planning on making her collectively the favorite person of the others' exceeds, meaning the one person that they can all agree that they like. It's gonna be really cute when that happens. It's going to involve a very interesting cat-nap.

By the way, if anyone has suggestions for what might happen if Ciara and Natsu had an argument inside the guild hall, I'm all ears. I'm currently trying to flesh out a particular chapter, and it's proving to be a bit difficult. I'm thinking, he goes flying through a wall...but I'm stuck there.

August - X778

Happy floats over while I'm eating and plops himself down on my head. "Cia! Tell Natsu that I want to go out on a job! I want money so I can get some fishies… Natsu can never catch me any big ones!"

Happy learned to talk pretty quickly. It only took us three months to get him to the speech level of a four year old, and he's getting better every day. And after discovering his Aera magic, Natsu convinced Gramps to give Happy a guild emblem, making him an official wizard of Fairy Tail.

I roll my eyes and shove the rest of my food in my mouth. My brother and his terrible fishing abilities. "Alright…but let's go pick one first."

"Aye!"

I head over to the request board, Happy still lying happily on my head. "Now…what kind of jobs are up there today?" I scan the board, looking for something good. There are the usual jobs, like disenchanting, rescues, and monster hunting. But I need to find one that my brother can't possibly mess up.

"How about that one." Happy points at the board, and I follow his line of sight, my eyes landing on the job he's suggesting.

"Clearing debris off a town after a storm? And they're offering three hundred thousand jewel?" This sounds like a perfect job for me and Natsu. And it pays a fortune! Looks like a storm brought down a lot of trees around the town, and a landslide dropped a few boulders on them. I guess they don't have the equipment to dig themselves out.

I look around the guild, searching for my brother's pink mop. Now…just have to find him so that we can go out and do this. I pull the flyer off the board and start walking around, looking for my brother. Oi Natsu! Where are you?

I'm eating with Gramps.

Knowing that, I look around until I see Gramps at the bar, again. Of course he's over there… So I float into the air and fly over the heads of some of our guildmates, landing softly on the stool next to Natsu. "Hey, Happy wants to go on a job, and I found us a good one!"

Natsu looks at me sceptically. "A good job? Are you sure that you wanna go? You could get hurt."

I huff impatiently and roll my eyes. "Yes, I do. Let's not have this argument again. I've come along on several jobs the last couple of months, and nothing bad happened. I'm going, and that's final. If you want to stay behind, then that's fine, I'll just go with Happy."

"Nah, I'll go. Now show me what you found." He pulls the flyer out of my hands and reads it. "Woah! Three hundred thousand jewel just to destroy stuff!? That's a lot of money!"

"Yeah, sounds perfect for us, right?" It's our chance to finally make a lot of money in one go. Then I get a bit more serious. "But remember, that just means trees and rocks and stuff. Try not to hit any buildings."

"Okay. And it's not too far from here." Natsu grins eagerly at me. "Let's do it!"

Macao looks over from the other end of the bar, laughing at us. "Well, leave it to the Dragonslayer Twins to find something to destroy. It's definitely your strong suit."

My mouth twitches and I growl at Macao. "Hey! Natsu's the one who destroys stuff. I only destroy what I'm supposed to. There's a big difference between me and him!"

Natsu rolls his eyes. "Thanks a lot, sis…" And without even getting mad, he goes right back to shoving food into his mouth.

Gramps snatches the flyer and looks it over. "Hm…yes, this should be a good job for you two. Just remember not to push yourselves too hard."

"Alright!" I grab Natsu's hand and pull him away from the bar. "Eat the rest on the way, we're going!"

"Alright, jeez!" He stuffs the rest of his food into his mouth and grabs his bag as I tug him out the door. "But how are we getting there?"

"The train, duh! I've still got some money left from my last job, so we can take the train and get there fast!" I pull him right out of the guild and down the street towards the train station.

Natsu, on the other hand, does not seem nearly as excited about this as I am. "But I hate trains…"

I ignore his pouting and drag him into the train station. "Natsu, it's going to be fine. Just stick your head out the window until we get there. It'll take an hour, tops."

"Okay…" He looks like he's going to be sick, but I'm too excited to pay him much notice.

I pull him to the counter with an attendant. "Three tickets for the train at eleven heading south!"

The attendant looks over the counter, frowning. "But there's only two of you."

Natsu points to Happy. "He's coming too."

The attendant sweatdrops. "Uh…but we don't allow pets on the train."

Happy takes offense to being called a pet. "I'm a wizard!"

The poor attendant nearly jumps out of his skin after hearing Happy talk. "What the hell!? Why is that cat talking!?"

I sigh and hold up some money. "Like he said, he's a wizard, and he's a member of Fairy Tail, just like us. So if we could please get three tickets…"

"Uh…sure…" The guy barely looks at the tickets as he hands them to us, focusing his gaze on our talking cat.

I take the tickets from him and turn towards the train, pulling Natsu along as I head for the doors. "Come on, we've got to get on that train now. We don't want to miss it."

"Yeah…" Natsu really looks like he's going to be sick, but I've got no idea why.

The three of us board the train and head off to find some free seats. Natsu toddles along behind me, still looking like he's going to puke up his lunch. So I pull him along to a set of free seats and sit him down. "Natsu…it's going to be okay. Don't be nervous about the job."

He groans a little. "I'm not nervous about the job… I don't like riding trains."

That sounds a little odd to me. "You don't like trains? Why?"

"They make me sick…" And just as he says that, the whistle blows and the train starts moving. "Oh no…" His face turns green and he really looks like he's going to throw up now.

Before Natsu can puke all over the seats, I clench my fist and bite my lip. Sorry about this, Natsu. I raise my hand and smack him square on the head, and not very gently. He falls right over in his seat, unconscious.

Happy freaks out. "Cia! Why did you do that!?"

I wince at Happy's tone, but my gaze is fixed on my brother. "Well, it looked like he was gonna get sick, so I knocked him out. Now, he won't get sick.

"Oh…" Happy hops over to Natsu and pokes his cheek. "Well, he's asleep." He snuggles up to my brother. "Wake us up when we get there…"

"Alright…" I watch quietly as Happy falls asleep against Natsu, and I spend the rest of the trip reading through my magic book. There are still a lot of spells in there that I haven't even read about yet. And this is the perfect time to get a little reading in.

Four hours later, I wake the two of them up and drag my brother off the train when we finally arrive at our destination. Poor Natsu…he had to sleep the whole way here. I didn't know that he got motion sickness on trains. I'll have to remember that for next time.

Natsu groans as he pulls himself to his feet. "Are we there yet?"

I nod and point ahead of us. "Yeah, that should be the city of Thyme."

"Time?" Natsu cocks his head to the side. "Do they make watches and clocks there?"

I slam my hand to my face. "Thyme! Not time… It's spelled differently. Thyme is a kind of herb that you can add to food."

Natsu looks like he's going to hurl again. "Please don't talk abut food."

"Alright…" I start walking off towards the main street, since it's about time we find out how bad the damage is here.

It doesn't take long to find out. Five minutes in, and I can see that the storm picked up trees and rocks and hurled them all over the place, bringing down a few buildings in the process. Natsu finally gets over his motion sickness and looks around in horror. "This place got flattened…"

A couple of townsfolk point at us and start whispering, so I approach them. "We're looking for the mayor, do you know where he is?"

The woman recoils a little and points towards the other end of the city. "H-he should be in his office."

The woman hurries away with the man, quickly disappearing from sight. Happy fies over my head and points in the direction that the woman did. "Let's go!"

Natsu groans and starts walking. I'm sure that he wants to get this job started so that he can forget about his motion sickness, but the feeling has to die down before he can get enthusiastic about the job. Though if he gets too enthusiastic, we're going to have to clean up a lot more than just the trees and rocks.

We get about halfway into the city, before a man in a nice suit steps into the street in front of us. "Well now, I haven't seen the two of you before. What brings you here?"

I point around at the destruction. "We're here to take care of your problem."

He frowns a little. "Are the two of you from Fairy Tail?"

I shake my head a little. "Not quite." I point up to Happy before flashing the man a look of my silver guild emblem. "The three of us are from Fairy Tail. This is Happy, he's a wizard too."

That surprises him. "I see. Then the three of you." The man looks around and sighs. "Well, I suppose that you can see the damage that the storm has caused to the city. It's destroyed buildings and left debris all over. We were hoping for someone to come and help us deal with the large pieces of rubble that we simple don't have the means to remove ourselves."

Natsu seems to have gotten over his motion sickness now. "That's why we're here! Destroying stuff is our specialty!"

That seems to alarm the man, who I guess must be the mayor. So I shake my head and sigh. "What he means is that we can use our magic to break down the rubble into more manageable pieces. Like shattering the boulders and cutting up the trees."

"Are you strong enough to do that?" The mayor now looks a little hopeful. "It would be wonderful of you if you could help to save my city from this disaster."

Natsu grins eagerly. "Of course! We're dragon slayers! No boulders area match for us!"

"Dragon slayers…?" The mayor looks a little confused now. "I've never heard of that kind of magic."

It's not a surprise, and it's something we've been through before. So I grin and introduce us, much in Natsu's fashion. "I'm Ciara Dragneel, and this is my twin brother Natsu! We're Fairy Tail's Dragonslayer Twins. He's a fire wizard, and I'm a wind wizard. And Happy is our talking cat, he uses Aera magic."

"I see." The mayor's eyes light up in excitement. "In that case, please help us. I place this city in your hands, Dragon Slayers."

I turn to Natsu with a grin. "Well, looks like we've got permission to get to work. So, should we get started on some of this mess?"

He nods and shows me an identical grin. "So, I'll take the trees, and you can do the rocks?"

"No way!" I shake my head. "You take care of the rocks. If you light all the trees on fire, then you'll start an inferno in the city. Go around smashing the rocks instead. I'll take care of splitting the trees in half."

"Fine…" He trudges off towards the nearest boulder and starts getting to work on smashing it to pieces.

I turn to Happy. "Hey, I want you to do something too, okay?"

He raises a paw in the air eagerly. "Aye!"

"I want you to use your Aera magic to pick up small pieces of wood and move them to a wide open location, somewhere where Ntsu can safely burn all of the wood. Okay? Try to get some of the people involved as well. If we've got a huge pile to work on, it'll make everything go faster."

"Aye!" Happy flies off into the sky as I look around for my first target.

Once I get a good look at the area, I head for the nearest fallen tree and concentrate magic around my foot. I spin around and bring my heel down. "Wind Dragon's Talon!"

The impact of my foot on the wood of the tree causes the bark to splinter, and the tree snaps in half, with cracks running up and down the grain of the wood. But most of it is still intact.

Hm…I need to put more force into it. The entire tree is probably ten times my height, and a hundred times my weight. So the only way to get more force is… To fly.

I back away from the tree, letting the wind circle around me. I float up into the air, going higher and higher, until the tree looks a whole lot smaller. Well, time to see if this is gonna work. Using the height I gained, I zoom down towards the ground, and smash into on half of the tree. The wood completely shatters under the force of my kick, splintering into a million pieces. Perfect, looks like this is going to work.

On the other side of the street, I hear a deafening boom, and look over to see that Natsu is surrounded by the remnants of a gray boulder. Nice one, Natsu!

Natsu turns to me and waves, a huge grin on his face. That was awesome! I'm going over to that huge boulder next!

Then be careful, you don't want it to shatter into sharp spikes, remember?

Yeah, I know! Natsu runs off like he's on a sugar high. Not that he needs sugar. He can get plenty hyper without it.

I finish breaking up the tree trunk, before turning my attention to a smaller tree that's gotten wedged between a couple of houses. I jump over and land in the branches of the tree. I'm gonna have to make this smaller before I get it out.

I focus magic in my hand and aim at the branches. "Wind Dragon's Claws!" I slash at the branches, and they snap off like icicles hanging from a roof. Then I jump out of the tree and back away. Now to get this thing out. I inhale deeply and aim carefully. "Wind Dragon's Roar!"

Without all the branches keeping it stuck in place, my roar dislodges the tree and sends it flying out into the street, turning it into a heap of kindling.

I jump over to inspect the tree, and it's completely toast. Maybe…I overdid it a little? If I reduce the force of my roar, maybe they won't fly so far. I hear a small explosion nearby, which can only mean one thing. Natsu is getting a little overenthusiastic about this job. Well…it's not like we can make the city's condition much worse. It's already half destroyed as is.

I jump onto the rooftops and take a look around. There are plenty of trees lodged on top of the buildings, and those are dangerous for a whole different reason. If they fall into the streets, people could get hurt.

After carefully blasting apart a few dozen more trees, mostly ones on top of buildings, I head back towards where the loud sounds of demolition are coming from. Sounds like Natsu is getting a little too excited about this job. It's like listening to a dragon stomping around.

I follow the sounds of boulders being thrown around, and I find Natsu piling a whole bunch of them into one large heap of rocks. I tilt my head, trying to figure out what he's up to. "Uh…Natsu? What are you doing?"

"What does it look like? I'm putting them in a pile! Happy said that you wanted to burn all the trees, so I thought I'd make a fire pit." He shatters a couple of the boulders, and starts spreading the shards all over the ground. "They've been bringing all the broken trees over in carts."

"That's good." I look around until I see where the carts of wood are sitting. "Then I guess we should start piling the wood up. I mean, it's no good for building, so all we can do is burn it."

"Then I will have my cleaning staff move the debris into the pit." The mayor comes out of nowhere, a smile on his face. "You know, I have thought of making some kind of monument or park in the square. But I suppose that a festival bonfire pit would be an excellent idea as well."

It hadn't really occurred to me that they would want to keep this mess in the city. But if it's their way of making something good out of a bad situation, then I'm in no position to argue. "Okay. Then Natsu and I will build the pit's walls. Those boulders should seal up the pit pretty good."

In response to that idea, Natsu tosses another boulder into the circle. "Awesome! Then I can build it just like the house I tried to make for Happy!"

His reference confuses me, but somehow, I'm afraid to ask him what he means. "Can I help?"

He frowns, then shakes his head. "Nah, I got it. You should help get the wood into the pit. Once we're done, I'll light it up."

It seems a little odd that he doesn't want my help with moving the boulders, but maybe it's just got to do with him wanting to burn some energy. So I busy myself with transferring some of the splintered wood into the center of the growing fire pit.

A half hour later, we're done moving everything around, and the fire pit is pretty well sealed up. And with all of the wood piled in the pit, Natsu lights his hand on fire. "Ready?"

I nod eagerly. "Of course. Light it up!"

He bends down and picks up a leftover stick, lighting it on fire easily. He tosses the stick into the air, throwing it clear over the ring of boulders, lighting the entire pile of wood on fire. It doesn't take long before the entire pile is ablaze.

The locals gather around to watch the flames climb higher and higher. The entire square is bathed in an orange glow. It almost reminds me of the fires that Igneel would make for us. Big and warm, and glowing red and orange all night long. And this fire is going to burn for hours.

Now that the town is all cleared up, Natsu and I pick up our packs and get ready to leave. The city itself will have to rebuild itself, but at least now there is no longer any danger from falling trees and rocks. Ensuring the safety of the city was our job, not helping to rebuild it. Besides, we've already built them a huge fire pit, trying to fix the buildings without coming prepared would just end in disaster.

But before we have the chance to head to the station, the mayor approaches us again in the middle of the main square. "Once again, I thank you for your help." He hands us a stack of money, our payment for the job. "If we require any more help, I'll be sure to send word to Fairy Tail."

I grin at him as I swing my pack onto my back. "Well, if another storm hits and you need Fairy Tail to come by again, be sure to ask for us!"

"Yeah! We're the Dragonslayer Twins!" Natsu lifts up his hand in a sign for victory. "We'll totally come help you guys out again!"

Now that we've officially finished up the job, which includes receiving our payment, the mayor sees us off at the train station. This time, I have to almost dragon Natsu onto the train, and I get him to fall asleep quickly, so that by the time we leave for Magnolia, he's already fast asleep.

So with this job, we start to build our reputation. And it's going to be a long and difficult road for us. But if we can stick it out, then there's nothing that we can't do.

Detail Explanation:

This section will be for explaining details that might seem contradictory or strange. It'll be at the end of chapters so that the chapter doesn't get too spoiled. Unless an explanation is needed beforehand.

This chapter explains a (fictional) origin of the Twin Dragon's name that Sting and Rogue use. I imagine that Sting would be the one who came up with a name like that, since Rogue never seems to care. So, remember who Sting's idol is. Because if your idol disappears and is presumed dead, it leaves a nickname wide open. If I were Sting, I would snap it up in an instant (but still twist it enough so that it's unique, and maybe more powerful than the nickname of the idol).

Also, I'm of course going to make some room for the running joke. Meaning...Natsu's motion sickness. Oh, and for anyone planning on complaining that Ciara doesn't get motion sickness, I'll be explaining why much later on. Although, it isn't so much a why as a what. Anyway, I'll get to that later when it actually becomes relevant. For the meantime, just go with...she's fine with vehicles. And I'll just add that Gajeel doesn't start getting motion sickness until the GMG arc, and Wendy is the same way, when we first meet her, motion sickness is nowhere to be seen, and she's even capable of curing it.

Regardless, there is a very specific reason that Ciara doesn't get motion sickness. And I promise that I will explain it in future chapters. It's part of a few plot points. No more spoilers though. :)P